GMM powered sites offer more news than Autosport without any charge. Press releases, race reports and session times, you can find anywhere on the internet. Even F1 Fanatic offer these with great depth than Autosport for free. I have been PLUS subscriber for over a year already, but I don't think the News section deserve to be valued. There is not enough exclusive content here to compensate the amount to be paid. Not a good tactic IMO.

GMM aggregate F1 news stories (and unreliable ones at that) and then resell them to news sites across the globe. Problem is, that most of the stories are badly translated and they often seem to deliberately miss vital information in to make them sound more exciting than they actually are.

If you trace back many of F1's controversies (the kind that get fans all riled up), you'll probably find a GMM misquote at the root of it all.

They need to make money, but aren't journalists. They're sensationalist rubbish. And importantly, they have a quota of stories to produce daily, which if memory serves me well is between 8-15 a day. Imagine doing that during the off season?

There surely is a market for a paid service of F1 news, for in depth articles covering all aspects of F1, for in depth articles dealing with other forms of Autoracing from the local national series up through the feeding chain to F1.

But that is the Autosport of the past, and no longer something Autosport offer and not something they have offered for quite some time by now, there are other threads dealing with the quality and perceived quality of Autosport which have been live on and off for the past 2 years. The general consensus on these have been that Autosport degrade, and while allowing themselves to be degraded also taking on an attitude of catering to a market outside the true F1 fans.

Hopefully this new endeavour is an attempt to right the ship and get back to the roots of what made Autosport the premier English language Autoracing mangazine, fingers crossed this is the case, cynically I do not expect that it will happen.

You know what would perhaps change my mind? Here, a free idea: Offering a free week or month, perhaps a cheap three-month sub would make me atleast want to try it. The £46 is just a bit too much to pay up front for a product I don't know if I like. I'm pretty sure Atlas offered something like that, which lured me in.

That's a good point - and we did something similar earlier this year. In February, we offered a month's AUTOSPORT+ subscription for £1 (or one Euro or one Dollar depending on which market you're subscribing from) so that people could try the site out during pre-season testing with only a very small outlay. If we do something similar in the future, we'll make sure that there's enough promotion around it on the site that you won't miss it!

All that said, the basic monthly package costs £5.50. At a similar sort of price to a monthly glossy magazine (but with regular content throughout the month), I hope that this this comes in at a reasonable price for someone who enjoys AUTOSPORT's free output to try it out for a month to see whether they like the premium content enough to continue subscribing.

From autosports point of view, sure they will lose users who want to get anything for free but the number who will pay will surely outweigh those that will leave? It's not like the price has gone up, it's new income.

What you've forgot there is advertising revenue. If (fake numbers) 1000 are viewing a story they'll get a lot less than they would with 10,000.

New payers are not all profit, they first need to make up for that drop.

This new metering system cannot work simply via IP tracking, for a number of reasons.

1) The IP address assigned to you by your ISP changes, unless you have paid for a static IP address. Over the course of a month, it is possible and perhaps likely that your IP address will change at least once.

2) If you are browsing the content at your place of business, or anywhere where there are multiple devices, there is a NAT (network address translation) which is making it appear to the Internet that all devices are coming from a single IP address. This means your coworker's page views would count towards your total, and vice versa.

3) If you browse content on Autosport from multiple locations (e.g. your home, your place of business, your smartphone), you will be viewing content from multiple IP addresses and therefore will not be metered

Another way this could be done is via IP tracking, PLUS a tracking cookie, which could perhaps include an integer which is incremented each time you view a new article. This could be used to solve the first two problems described above, but does not solve the third problem. Also, since cookies are text files, if this method is used, it should be trivial to change the incremented number to 0, or some other number less than 50. Again, if this method is used, Autosport may make that impossible by hashing the tracking incrementer so a simple text edit cannot 'trick' the system into thinking you are a new visitor. One way or another, this system must include some kind of tracking cookie (which FYI, most vulnerability and anti-virus scanners consider to be less than completely above board).

And that still leaves the last problem, where if you browse from multiple locations, you will get around the Autosport-imposed limit. To limit these users, I beleive Autosport would have to prompt visitors to log in, and then track page views by your account. And if Autosport expects everyone who visits their website to log in, regardless if they are a paid subscriber or not, they will almost certainly see a significant drop in ad revenue generated by ad impressions.

I think the most likely scenario is that Autosport will use a tracking cookie with no forced login, and accept the fact that some percentage of users who view their site from multiple locations will be able to see more than 50 articles per month.

EDIT:
It also just occurred to me that if you reguarly clear your Internet cache, tracking cookies wouldn't work either. You can also selectively clear your Internet cache for certain websites exclusively. And anyone who chooses to browse in 'Incognito' mode in Chrome does not download tracking cookies to their computer. Again this is probably a small percentage of the whole.

I think you guys read a bit too much into the technicalities. I'm not sure Autosport are interested in having a complicated and extensive measure that cannot be cheated.

They just want to remind the heavy user that they are a bit of a contemptible and cheap person after X amount of free clicks, in the hope that they find some dignity and chip in to access the content freely, and more.

I could try to circumvent what ever metering is being installed, but have no inclination to do so.

I will read the 50 allotted articles, being careful not to read any of the Team updates, as they are useless anyway. I am basically just looking for real content which would be the practice reports and the race report, which can easily be held within 50 and then depending on what else of real content is there, I have some articles to spare.

But I will not shell out for the magazine as such, as I do not see it being worthwhile at least for now.

It may be interesting to compare it to sky. With bbc you get a certain amount of 'free' content but if you want it all you pay for sky. I've paid for sky, I'm very happy the content is good, you get more of it and the quality is better. A lot of people said they would turn of when it was announced but I know a lot that didn't. It would be interesting to see the viewing figures. Maybe it could be the same with autosport?

With the economy, maybe autosport isn't getting enough revenue out of advertising thus need to find another sort?

Regardless of technicalities and the whys of wherefores it's happening so I guess I better get my wallet out.

The quality of the current free Autosport articles aren't really any better than elsewhere, so this move will only result in less viewers, less ad-revenue, and someone else getting a foot hold.

For those of you who don't like the change, the only information they have on you is firstly your IP address, which will be different for home/work/3G, and with a lot of 'home' internet packages, can be changed by rebooting your modem. Secondly they, with your permission, can store a text file on your PC known as a cookie to identify you. Most browsers will accept these without asking.

They can be deleted, or you could surf using an anonymous mode, like Incognito in the Chrome browser for example, which will delete anything created by any websites during its session.

Relying solely on IP tracking is flawed as it would render shared internet places like web-cafés or universities, offices and public hotspots useless.

This change won't do Autosport any good at all. Idiotic change and people will simply go elsewhere. Even if it was 10p a week, people will still simply go "oh not this site" and google another, as the ball ache of registering and entering payment information is enough to put most people off.

Is there even a way of people knowing how many articles they've read? For example I just read an article, yet there was absolutely nothing whatsoever that I could see to tell me how many articles I'd read, or how many free articles I have left. I'm certainly not going to write down each day how many articles I've looked at just to keep track, so surely there's a remotely sensible way of being able to keep track ourselves, through the use of a counter on screen, or a short message at the top of each article saying "articles read: 4" for example?

As a Print copy magazine Subscriber of 10 years or more I will contine to read the website with no restrictions however I do think Autosport are shooting themselves in both feet with this.

I read F1, BTCC, WTCC, LeMans and the odd WRC story. All of the above have websites that offer all the news for Free.

I read the news on Autosport because I get an email of news and its convenient, nothing more, I probably look at the subscriber section of the site that I 've been getting with my Magazine Sub once a month if that.

If you want to divert traffic away from the site its going to work, 50 news stories a month?? F1 news over a weekend can easily equal that.

I would add that as a long term subscriber I felt insulted at being asked to pay £2.99 for the Autosport App and won't be doing so ever!

Lastly the last time Autosport had a breaking news story was a long time ago, has anyone heard of Twitter, last time I looked it was Free and virtually every journo on the planet has an account.

Is there even a way of people knowing how many articles they've read? For example I just read an article, yet there was absolutely nothing whatsoever that I could see to tell me how many articles I'd read, or how many free articles I have left. I'm certainly not going to write down each day how many articles I've looked at just to keep track, so surely there's a remotely sensible way of being able to keep track ourselves, through the use of a counter on screen, or a short message at the top of each article saying "articles read: 4" for example?

At the moment, a note will appear telling you when you've reached 40 stories and again when you've reached 45 stories.

Once people start hitting these limits, I'd be interested in feedback as to whether they should appear more often as there's a balance between them being informative and being too intrusive if they appear every 5 or 10 pageviews as you're browsing the site.

Personally I'd rather have 1 every time I read a story. Yeah giving you a note after 40 or 45 stories might be ok, but essentially, if you want to keep track (so you don't read say 8 1 day, 4 the next, 3 the next, 6 the next, and find that with 8 days of the month gone you've already used a very high number of your stories) you're going to have to keep track yourself, which just seems like a load of hassle. If not a note every story, then every 5.

Showing 88p per week in big font and small font actually saying you'll be charged £46.

Its not a weekly subscription but an annual one. It should be shown as £46 with a smaller font explaining that works out at 88p per week, or better, £3.83 a month, as that is the equivalent of the other monthly option.

To recap then:

1. Don't pay, get 50 news stories.
2. Pay £2.99 as a one off fee and get all the news and databases on your iPad/iPhone, but no Autosport+ content
3. Pay £46/year or £5.50/month (£66/year) and get all news and Autosport+ on the web
4. Pay £99/year and get magazine on your iPad/iPhone and no access to web content beyond the 50 stories
5. Pay £112/year or £10/month (£120/year) and get all news, Autosport+ on the web, and a pdf
6. Pay £130/year and get enhanced magazine on your iPad/iPhone and get all news and Autosport+ on the web

Is that correct now?

Will options 4 and 6 have the same enhanced mag once its launched?
Will option 6 have a monthly option?
Does option 2 provide all the news stories or just a selection? Does it only feed from the website or does it have any magazine content? Does it include any A+ content?
Will you bring out bespoke channel subscriptions?

autosport writes 5-6 small story headlines from that story with catchy headlines to reel in readers

then few hours later reprint of FIA press conference in full

other content re-quoted from tv coverage interviews

only original content is from free practice, qualifying and race reports

in my opinion bad move

I guess in some respects this is a good thing. People will stop reading the by the numbers stories, because they will be watching their quota. It should encourage autosport then, to write more engaging material.

Personally I think this is a fair enough step, and if it leads to better content, I'll pay. Given the general deterioration in the standard of the site over the past few years, I hope this means they can produce better writing.

Personally I think this is a fair enough step, and if it leads to better content, I'll pay. Given the general deterioration in the standard of the site over the past few years, I hope this means they can produce better writing.

I would be very very pleased were Autosport to revert to their previous great Autosport coverage, insightful articles, touching on more than the glossy front which is currently their tack, I will revert to a full subscription in no time, getting the apps, the online and the hardcover version as well, I had a subscription for 15 years and had the product not regressed as much as it did, I would have continued to shell out.

Why I not have the possibility to pay via PayPal, SkyCash/Alior Sync (I have only MasterCard debit cards) for Autosport+? I want to support Autosport, but you don't give me any chance. What do I do?

At this point I am discriminated because i don't have a credit card.

We're looking to introduce the option to pay for a subscription via PayPal. This has taken longer than we were hoping, but it's still something that we're very keen to get sorted as it's something that quite a few people have been asking about.

I'll keep you posted - I'd really like to be able to announce something soon!

So I already have something like 45 articles on my counter, yet it is August 6th and I'm pretty sure I did not read more than 10 news stories on the page. So I have no idea how your counter works. Is it because Google Reader connects every now and then and downloads first paragraph from RSS feed?

Oh well. I'm not going to pay that amount of money for news. Somebody mentioned Piano system - that would be better.

I find I'm not reading the current stories (of secondary interest, but I'd previously have read them all) just in case something big blows up later in the month that I want to read in depth. As a result my visits to the site are probably a tenth of what they were last month and I've read perhaps two stories in a week. I don't suppose the advertisers will be overjoyed if this reflects a wider pattern of use - I'd certainly not want to discourage readership so heavily on our own (commercial) website.

The problem is that Autosport sells words (we sell music) - and a website is largely about the words. It's hard to see how you can square that circle without finding something else to sell off the back of the words. I don't envy you - I look forward to the new iPad app as my current subscription doesn't count against my 50 articles a month and I want to support your continued existence!

So I already have something like 45 articles on my counter, yet it is August 6th and I'm pretty sure I did not read more than 10 news stories on the page. So I have no idea how your counter works. Is it because Google Reader connects every now and then and downloads first paragraph from RSS feed?

Hi Kub,

If you're getting the RSS feed, this shouldn't count towards your limit of 50 stories unless you actually click on the link in the RSS story to come through to the website itself.

Can you drop me a line using the Contact Us form (as this captures your IP address) so that I can ask our development team to take a look to see whether there's anything odd that has tripped up your account? If you know of anything which might be affecting your count (if you're using lots of multiple devices or lots of people in your location are accessing the site) then let me know about this as well.

This goes for anyone else who is being over-counted by our meter as well - if our dev team have details of the cases where the metering tool isn't working properly then this will help improve it!

We sometimes, during a heated discussion on the board, copy and paste an article/story from Autosport in relation to the discussion rather than giving the link, hence time saving. For the Plus features, we were not allowed to copy-paste all article, instead posting an excerpt or paraphrasing. Given that Autosport put a meter on news now, are we also not allowed to copy and paste an article/story from Autosport News Section? It could be good to know what will be the case. Thanks.

If you're getting the RSS feed, this shouldn't count towards your limit of 50 stories unless you actually click on the link in the RSS story to come through to the website itself.

Can you drop me a line using the Contact Us form (as this captures your IP address) so that I can ask our development team to take a look to see whether there's anything odd that has tripped up your account? If you know of anything which might be affecting your count (if you're using lots of multiple devices or lots of people in your location are accessing the site) then let me know about this as well.

This goes for anyone else who is being over-counted by our meter as well - if our dev team have details of the cases where the metering tool isn't working properly then this will help improve it!

Thanks for the reply. It has only happened once so far, so at this moment everything seems to be fine. I will use the contact form next time I notice something is off with the counter.

I struggle to see how breaking down the interview extracts into seperate news reports is quality journalism, If your going to limit 'Free viewers' to 50 reports per month play fair, many of them no doubt buy the magazine off the newstand each week.

I'm on the #40 story and I didn't care what I open, I've read all these stories from f1.com or press-releases and I wouldn't pay.
The reason is because F1 is a worldwide sport, so reports will always be free no matter what. I think Autosport sends 3-4 reporters to the races, so they're getting a great roi. I would consider paying for all the other motorsport stories because there you have much less journalists and much less interest from the public. But most of them are just reports on the races and in general Autosport's focus goes more and more and more into F1. Many of the stories are lots of writing and theories, very often the covers of the magazines are misleading as you expect smth big, but you get a couple of worthy lines. I was a subscriber until some years ago and then found this focus on F1 annoying. We all love F1, don't get me wrong, but it's not alone in the world of motorsport.

I'm on the #40 story and I didn't care what I open, I've read all these stories from f1.com or press-releases and I wouldn't pay.The reason is because F1 is a worldwide sport, so reports will always be free no matter what. I think Autosport sends 3-4 reporters to the races, so they're getting a great roi. I would consider paying for all the other motorsport stories because there you have much less journalists and much less interest from the public. But most of them are just reports on the races and in general Autosport's focus goes more and more and more into F1. Many of the stories are lots of writing and theories, very often the covers of the magazines are misleading as you expect smth big, but you get a couple of worthy lines. I was a subscriber until some years ago and then found this focus on F1 annoying. We all love F1, don't get me wrong, but it's not alone in the world of motorsport.

Yes and that is really it.

We have had discussions as to why old subscribers have chosen not to re-up after years and years of paying for a solid product, and basically boils down to the quality not being there anymore, I still can not see how many stories I have read, but I have read a lot less than I normally do, once the summer hiatus is over I will pick up, be a little choosy and when I run out of access for a month, I will get the news from other sources.

Knowing that the product improved will not be through Autosports selfcongratulatory announcements, but will based on a slew of positive posts as to the great improvement from posters here.

Autosport may still be the reference for accurate articles but there's no way I'm ever going to pay for regular, common news articles. There's dozens of F1 sites and I'm certain I can find sources for news from other series. Bye bye.

... I still can not see how many stories I have read, but I have read a lot less than I normally do, once the summer hiatus is over I will pick up, be a little choosy and when I run out of access for a month, I will get the news from other sources...

I've only read a few news stories - but I can't see any counter that says how many stories I've read. Could someone please describe where on the home page it is?

when I run out of access for a month, I will get the news from other sources.

I'll be doing the same.

I used to be a subscriber to the Premium content, but I just didn't feel as though I was receiving value for money.

That's not just a reflection on Autosport though because I don't subscribe to or buy any motorsport related content any more. The horse has bolted with the introduction of the internet for traditional media models. There is such a rich variety of free sources on the internet for my needs that I can't justify paying for what I can get free of charge.

And in the long run sports like F1 etc are funded by advertisers. It's in their interests to put out as much information as possible, so there will never be a situation where you can't get free motorsport information.

Just to add my voice to all the others, you're cutting your own throat, it's all available elsewhere and although you were once the reference your quality is not what it was. Too bad. It's also laughably easy to get around your limit for those that can be bothered.

I've just been tabbed at 40 viewed with 10 to go.
The front page headline said something like 'Force India Targets Williams'; when I get to the article, it's only Hulkenbergs opinion backed with some stats.
If you'd said 'According to Hulkenberg Force India to Target Williams' I wouldn't have wasted my time going there!
Seems poor old Autosport's in desperate times.
No bloody wonder!

Most of the blurb you offer up is covered elsewhere, better.
I Won't Be Subscribing!

If I'm not mistaken, I haven't been reading "journalism" but press releases. And I've seen advertising - Castrol, CotA.

If Atlas F1 had stayed free, by now it would be the defacto standard F1 site, and would be a lucrative target for people wanting to advertise. You have to have numbers to charge for advertising.
You're going to lose a lot of numbers by doing this.

My local newspaper decided to start charging for their local website. They're now massively in debt.

Comcast is now trying to make users not able to fast forward through commercials they've added to their on-demand service - which I'm paying for. Those commercials are about
to never even be glimpsed because I'm not going to pay for that.

The thing to do would be to make your entire site free, and actively try to compete with your competition - because you do have competition, particularly in the "here's a press release/quote from a driver" department. I don't like the added "journalism" of histrionics on Planet F1, but the free content is about the same, not to mention there's totalf1, crash.net, skysportsf1, etc. etc.

This is quite lame! People will just go else where for news. Does Autosport think they hold a monopoly of racing news worldwide? Please! I'll just go to another site and maybe buy their magazines once in a while instead of Autosport.

What this is going to do is increase my time spent on speedtv.com, italiaracing.net, racer.com and motorsport.com; maybe one day I won't even visit Autosport.com anymore. Simple as that; every news piece on Autosport is found on other racing sites. I used to primarily go on autosport.com to get my news, but if they want me to pay, then I'll give speedtv or someone else the primary spot. Simple as that! One thing I won't do, is pay!

TBH, you're just massively accelerating the development of your competitors. In the world of Internet, charging the users doesn't work. What works is to work hard to find relevant sponsors for your visitors. I see Earthshare.org as the only ad right now on this page. I gather it's US based environmental organization & most of your traffic comes from EU. I'm in EU, so why would I support a US organization? Furthermore, are they better sponsors for your website than some auto industry related company?That's where you have to work, asking your users to contribute for race reports available elsewhere isn't going to work.Google or Youtube are worth billions not because they're super exclusive clubs and you aim to be #1 in the motorsport world.Now I'm off to motorsport.com, just Googled to find a website which features race reports on the same topics that I read & turns out I've been missing on great reports from Super GT:)

Well, there actually is a simple way for autosport staff to make it clear if paying is or is not worth...

Just tag anything you think exclusive or worth a few $ with an icon — a red flashing icon would do it of course, what other colour could one think about? — and leave everything else outside the metering... In the very unlikely event it reaches those 40-50 page hits you've decided to gauge, one would even think about it. Many would, I'd guess.

Very simple — just keep the er news every F1 site posts aside and show us you actually do better than just posting press releases or results as everyone else does... Do that more than once a week on average. And grab the money! Elegant and fair solution, isn't it?

Another peculiar thing about this decision is that the same news (not just similar stories, but the actual Autosport articles) is freely available at other places. Maybe that will change at some point, and I'm sure Autosport makes something by selling the stories on, but for now it seems like another easy way for readers to avoid this site, which can't be good for overall revenue.